Inside

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a performance profile in Inside that is defined by extreme headroom and a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution changes. The measured frame rates are exceptionally high across all settings, but the data reveals that the CPU is the primary limiting factor at lower resolutions, while the GPU begins to assert its influence only at 4K. This combination ranks 172nd out of 1671 tested combos, placing it in the top 11% of all systems benchmarked for this title.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 247 FPS at 1920x1080 to 178.2 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 27.9%. Moving to 3840x2160 yields 112.1 FPS, which represents a further 37.1% drop from the 1440p figure. The total decline from 1080p to 4K is 54.6%, which is substantial but not as steep as one might expect from a purely GPU-bound scenario.

The Low settings row shows an even more revealing pattern. At 1080p, the combo achieves 389.9 FPS, which falls to 348.9 FPS at 1440p (a 10.5% drop) and then to 222.1 FPS at 4K (a 36.3% drop from 1440p). The relatively modest decline between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor at these resolutions, as the GPU has ample capacity to render the lighter workload. Only when the pixel count jumps to 2160p does the GPU become the dominant constraint, causing the frame rate to fall more sharply.

This interpretation is reinforced by the Medium and Ultra presets. At Medium, the 1080p result of 362.5 FPS drops to 283 FPS at 1440p (a 21.9% decline) and then to 178.8 FPS at 4K (a 36.8% decline from 1440p). At Ultra, the figures are 236.2 FPS at 1080p, 170.1 FPS at 1440p (a 28% decline), and 109 FPS at 4K (a 35.9% decline from 1440p). The consistent pattern across all settings—a moderate drop to 1440p followed by a larger drop to 4K—indicates that the system is CPU-bound at 1080p and progressively becomes GPU-bound as resolution increases.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Raptor Lake-R architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It features 24 MB of shared L3 cache and a 10 nm process node. In Inside, a puzzle platformer that is not known for heavy multi-threaded workloads, the single-core performance is likely the dominant factor, and the data supports this.

The CPU's benchmark scores indicate strong single-threaded capability: it achieves 4642 points in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2803 points in Geekbench single-core. These scores place the processor in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, has an average benchmark score of 49062, which is only 0.2% higher than the i5-14600K's 49166. This near-parity in overall CPU performance suggests that the i5-14600K is not holding back the system in any meaningful way.

At 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches 389.9 FPS, which is a figure that suggests the CPU is the limiting factor. The fact that increasing the preset from Low to Medium at 1080p only drops the frame rate from 389.9 to 362.5 FPS (a 7% reduction) indicates that the CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU even as the workload increases. The 20 threads and 14 cores provide ample capacity for the game's logic and physics, but the high boost clock of 5.30 GHz is what enables the extremely high frame rates at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

When examining the measured rows, the High preset appears to offer the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1080p, High yields 247 FPS, which is only 4.4% lower than the Medium preset's 362.5 FPS but provides a significant visual upgrade over Low. At 1440p, High delivers 178.2 FPS, which is comfortably above the 144 Hz refresh rate commonly found on modern monitors. At 4K, High still manages 112.1 FPS, which is a playable frame rate for a puzzle platformer.

The Ultra preset, by comparison, offers diminishing returns. At 1080p, Ultra achieves 236.2 FPS, which is only 4.4% lower than High's 247 FPS. The gap widens slightly at 1440p, where Ultra delivers 170.1 FPS versus High's 178.2 FPS (a 4.5% difference), and at 4K, Ultra drops to 109 FPS versus High's 112.1 FPS (a 2.8% difference). The visual gains from Ultra over High are typically marginal in a game like Inside, which has a stylized art style, making High the more sensible choice.

For players targeting the highest possible frame rates, Low settings at 1080p provide 389.9 FPS, but this is unnecessary for a game of this genre. The Medium preset at 1080p offers 362.5 FPS, which is still over three times the 4K High result. The data suggests that High at 1440p is the sweet spot: it provides 178.2 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay, while maintaining visual fidelity.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 172nd out of 1671 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the top 10.3% of all systems benchmarked, which is a strong result given the game's release date of 2016-07-06 and the relative age of the title.

The rank is particularly impressive when considering the GPU's percentile. The RX 7900 XT sits in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 38358. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, which has an average score of 38349 (a 0% delta), and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX, which scores 38225 (a 0.3% delta). The GPU is therefore well-matched to the CPU, which ranks in the 93rd percentile. The combination of a top-decile CPU and a high-eighties-percentile GPU results in a system that is well above average for this game.

The 172nd rank out of 1671 combos means that only 171 other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in Inside. Given the game's relatively low graphical demands, this rank is likely driven by the CPU's strong single-threaded performance, which allows the system to reach frame rates above 300 FPS at lower resolutions.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a RDNA 3.0 architecture GPU with a Navi 31 chip, featuring 5376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 render output units. It has a boost clock of 2394 MHz and a game clock of 2025 MHz, with a base clock of 1387 MHz. The GPU is equipped with 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, providing 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Inside, the GPU's role is primarily felt at 4K resolution. At 1080p, the frame rate differences between Low (389.9 FPS) and Ultra (236.2 FPS) are substantial, but the absolute numbers are so high that the GPU is never a limiting factor. The 20 GB of VRAM is far more than the game requires, even at 4K with Ultra settings, as Inside is a puzzle platformer with relatively simple textures and geometry.

The GPU's compute performance is notable: it delivers 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s. These specifications are far in excess of what Inside demands, which explains why the frame rates remain high even at 4K. The 109 FPS at 4K Ultra reflects the GPU's raw rasterization power, but the data suggests that the CPU is still the primary driver of performance at lower resolutions.

The fact that the RX 7900 XT is listed as "End-of-life" in production status, with a release date of 2022-11-02, means it is a mature product with well-established drivers. This likely contributes to the stable performance observed in the measured results.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Inside?*

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 389.9 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems for this game?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 172nd out of 1671 tested combos, placing it in the top 10.3% of all systems.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160 resolution, the High preset delivers 112.1 FPS, while the Ultra preset delivers 109 FPS, a difference of 3.1 FPS or approximately 2.8%.

Q: Which resolution shows the largest performance drop from the previous resolution?

A: The largest relative drop occurs when moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at Low settings, where the frame rate falls from 348.9 FPS to 222.1 FPS, a 36.3% decline.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the CPU appears to be the limiting factor, as evidenced by the relatively small frame rate difference between Low (389.9 FPS) and Medium (362.5 FPS) settings, which suggests the GPU has spare capacity.

Q: What are the L3 cache specifications of the Intel Core i5-14600K?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K features 24 MB of shared L3 cache, along with 80 KB of L1 cache per core and 2 MB of L2 cache per core.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured frame rates for this combo are as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 389.9 FPS
• Medium: 362.5 FPS
• High: 247 FPS
• Ultra: 236.2 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 348.9 FPS
• Medium: 283 FPS
• High: 178.2 FPS
• Ultra: 170.1 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 222.1 FPS
• Medium: 178.8 FPS
• High: 112.1 FPS
• Ultra: 109 FPS

The data shows a consistent pattern across all settings: the frame rate drops by roughly 10-30% when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and then by another 30-37% when moving from 1440p to 4K. The Low setting at 4K (222.1 FPS) still exceeds the High setting at 1080p (247 FPS) by a narrow margin, indicating the GPU's substantial headroom. The Ultra setting at 4K yields 109 FPS, which is the lowest measured result but remains well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This combination demonstrates that Inside is not a demanding title for this hardware, with the CPU being the primary constraint at lower resolutions and the GPU only becoming relevant at 4K.